New UK Full Fibre Broadband ISP Zzoomm Begins Network Testing

New ISP Zzoomm, which was launched earlier this year by Gigaclear’s founder and hopes to cover 1 million homes with 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband tech by the end of 2024 (here), has said that they’ve “assembled and powered up” a full end-to-end test of their new access network ahead of its roll-out.

Last month the provider, which is being supported by an initial investment of £1m from CEO Matthew Hare, confirmed that they intended to use ADTRAN‘s next generation XGS-PON solution and equipment to deliver a 10Gbps capable “full fibre” service to any homes and businesses they cover (here).

At present the test bed they’ve built is merely designed to “simulate” their future network and is said to look like a “cabinet full of cream boxes and flashing lights,” although it does include internet connectivity, a 100Gbps core and edge connectivity and multiple XGS-PON Optical Line Terminations (OLT). Not to mention lots of Zzoomm’s yellow fibre optic cabling.

The test bed also has customer Optical Network Terminals (ONT) and broadband routers, to help replicate the set-up in a typical household. Like most new networks the ISP will use this to help validate their service management, provisioning, operations and network monitoring approach before building the real thing.

Zzoomm Statement

Zzoomm will be testing different software loads to ensure that the network runs reliably and importantly, the test bed will be used to introduce software and hardware failures to ensure that the resilience designed into the network delivers continuous service to customers. Our network won’t just be fast, it will be dependable too.

Getting the network testing underway is another big step towards bringing fast full fibre to homes and businesses across the UK. Get ready. Zzoomm’s coming!

The provider eventually intends to target the more commercially viable and lucrative urban areas, specifically smaller cities (e.g. Hastings, Amersham, Weymouth and Huntingdon) and the suburbs of larger cities (e.g. London and Birmingham). Under the current plan they expect their first deployments to take place sometime this summer 2019 and they’re busy trying to secure some solid investment partners in order to support the wider roll-out.

By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.

I’m often surprised by how regularly companies take over and then sack/force out the old management (even when its actually pretty good) So then they go off and form a new company. (Not a comment on this case)

bob investors in gigaclear and other only invest to make a return on their money — they means the object of their investment getting sold — problem them that company becomes less of what it was and is driven more and more by they people who brought it (normally customers find that our first)– — . that normal and understood. but it means that days of plucky little gigalclear aginst nasty big bt – arer long over as gigaclear is part of a multinational corporate — the same will be expected to happen here

Yes not the best advert. Particularly the glimpse of the rack next door and that RJ45 cable trapped under the door. The cream units are the Adtran 5000 OLT and there is a Small Business/Family ONT at the bottom. But the rest of the equipment doesn’t look like Adtran so presumably they are testing out various scenarios and as a startup simply can’t afford a Martlesham lab equivalent. It can’t be easy.
At least we have moved on from the days when the comms rooms doubled as stationery cupboards etc.

Love that more and more fibre infrastructure for the British internet is getting more and more attention and investment by businessmen and women, hopefully, we can also get rid of our ancient copper wire infrastructure.

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